-I have many things I want to discuss with you.
You know I love "Mobituaries" and I like the podcast, as well.
And I want to talk about "Fairycakes."
Let's just start with that.
"Fairycakes" -- how did you get involved with this?
And what part do you play?
-Well, the playwright -- very funny writer --
Douglas Carter Beane, called me and said,
"I've written a play that's a mashup of classic stories like
'Pinocchio, 'Snow White,' 'Cinderella,'
and Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.'
And I want you to play Geppetto."
The Geppetto of "Pinocchio."
I was intrigued, especially because this is not
the Geppetto we grew up with, alright?
Our grandparents' Geppetto.
That Geppetto, with all due respect,
was a failed wood-carver who made terrible toys.
He had no social life.
He spent all of his day chasing around a sociopathic puppet.
You know, the -- -Yeah, yeah.
-And ends up being swallowed by a whale.
This is a vulnerable Geppetto, a soulful Geppetto,
and a sexy Geppetto, so that's what really drew me to the role.
-Wow! -Thank you.
[ Cheers and applause ]
We are remaking -- We are reclaiming
Geppetto on our terms.
-Yeah. I also want to ask you, because, always,
you have something very interesting.
Every time you come on, we'll talk about something,
And you collect, like, art history or something.
So you collect some old, cool things.
-Presidential memorabilia.
-Yes, you love presidential memorabilia,
but you have a bust of Grover Cleveland
in your house.
-Well, right.
So, Grover Cleveland is, I mean, by far my third-favorite
late-19th-century president.
And so I had a bust of him --
-Don't pick favorites, but, yeah, okay.
-I had him in my apartment for 20 years.
And then I went for "CBS Sunday Morning"
to do a story and I interviewed the grandson of
Grover Cleveland, George Cleveland.
I showed him a picture of my bust of what
I thought was Grover Cleveland,
and he said, "That's not my grandfather."
And I felt like -- It felt like
I was in one of those Lifetime Network movies.
Like, this man that you thought was a 19th century president
is not who you thought he was.
-Yeah. This is the bust you have in your house.
-This is right.
For Christmas, we put ornaments around him.
-Yeah, of course, you decorate it for Christmas.
as one should, yeah.
-Gigantic. And I went on -- And I thought,
"If I only I could get on 'Antiques Roadshow.'"
And then they did these special episodes during the pandemic,
and they invited me on.
And I thought, "This is exactly what I need them
to help me figure out.
And, anyway, it's not worth a lot,
as in it's worth nothing.
It's just a big hunk of painted plaster.
But Twitter did, actually, a nice thing,
and after watching this, a bunch of people on Twitter
sort of sent in clues about who it was,
people that are real history buffs.
And it turns out that it is a former New York --
NYPD police chief named Richard Enright,
from the Prohibition era, who had a great reputation,
kind of a badass.
And, so, that's who -- That's who is --
He's now my security detail, I guess.
-Wow! You're a big fan of him. That's fantastic.
See, but I love this -- All this stuff
would only happen to you.
I feel like you're just an -- You're an interesting guy,
but you're interested in things.
And so you go, "Yeah, so, I want to find out what this is."
But that's what I like about "Mobituaries."
Did this start as a podcast?
-It started as a pod-- It started as a podcast,
but I knew we were going to do a book at the same time.
The material is different for the podcast and the book.
There's some overlap.
But I just -- You know, I went with subjects --
people and things -- that I feel didn't get the sendoff
they deserved the first time.
So there are favorite entertainers in there,
like Sammy Davis Jr., who was just, I think,
the greatest entertainer of the 20th century, all around.
My co-author, Jonathan Greenberg, and I
also did "Mobituaries"
for sitcom characters that disappeared.
There is something called the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome,
which you may know.
-Now, who is Chuck -- -[ Laughs ]
-Thank you. He knows. -No, I know who he was.
Chuck -- Was it Ron Howard's brother?
-Okay, so, yeah.
So, Richie Cunningham, Ron Howard,
had an older brother for the first --
Oh, does this work? -No, it doesn't.
-For the first two sea-- Oh, it does work.
Wow! -It does. Wow.
I never knew it worked.
-It does. -This is fantastic.
It's like we're doing an old-timey radio show.
-I know. I love it. -Tell me about it.
-Bob and Ray.
So, yes, Richie Cunningham had an older brother,
Chuck Cunningham, on the first few seasons of "Happy Days."
He was known primarily for
dribbling a basketball and eating a sandwich.
He didn't really do much else. -No.
-The Fonz -- he became more and more popular.
And Garry Marshall, the creator of the show,
who really was kind of a genius, said,
"Look, why would Richie Cunningham
go to anyone but The Fonz for advice on
dating and, you know, dealing in high school?"
So, basically, Chuck Cunningham, the older brother,
had to die for The Fonz to live.
And so they bas-- They just disappeared the character.
They never explained it.
He just went upstairs one day and just -- and never came down.
And the same thing happened to
Judy Winslow on "Family Matters."
In February of 1993, at Grandma Winslow's wedding,
which was a very special episode,
Judy Winslow -- that character --
she went down the aisle as a flower girl
and then she disappeared.
She was never seen again.
-They didn't bring her back at all.
-Right. And, really, the blame lies with Urkel,
because Urkel --
-He got too famous.
-Urkel had become so big, there just wasn't room
for a cute little sister.
So they had to vaporize her.
-I love this.
There is so many more great, funny stories
and awesome stories in this.
"Mobituaries."
Please check out this book and go check out Mo Rocca,
everybody, in "Fairycakes," running now through January 2nd
at the Greenwich House Theater!